Friday, December 7, 2012

Aunt Molly's Shortbread

Around the holidays there are a couple of old family recipes that my mom always has to make. (because if she didn't, there would be protest). One of them is her famous toffee, and this shortbread is the other. At nap time a couple of weeks ago she was making a batch to bring to the relatives for Thanksgiving. So I decided to blog it, to save the recipe for posterity.

"This recipe is from Oma's best friend, "Aunt" Molly, who was from Scotland. This is real Scottish shortbread, not the pretend stuff you buy in the store. "Aunt" Molly's husband, "Uncle" Bill was the milk man. Sometimes if I got up very early I would see "Uncle" Bill putting our milk order into the milk box on our back porch." She told me while she was getting the ingredients ready. Oma was my great grandmother, in a previous post we have done Roladen recipe.

Ingredients:

2 sticks of butter (must be butter)

1/2 cup of sugar

2 & 1/2 cups of flour

Put the sugar in the bowl first then cut the butter into small cubes and put on top of the sugar (can let it sit for 10-15 minutes so that butter starts to get soft, but you don't want it really soft.)

Cream the butter and sugar together with a wooden spoon.

"probably would go faster creaming the butter and the sugar with the mixer, but this is real Scottish shortbread so you make it by hand."

Gradually add the flour 1/2 cup at a time. Cut in the flour with a pastry cutter...

and eventually your hands when it gets too hard.

Mixture will be crumbly

Pour into the 8x8 pan

Squash it down with you hands, to make one big slab in the pan. (Push really, really hard to make it stick together)

Prick it all over with a small fork.

Bake in oven preheated to 300 for about 30 minutes, but watch it very closely. You want it to be very pale brown (seriously not even brown at all)

Remove from oven, score into squares with a sharp knife while still warm.

Also while still warm sprinkle the top with white sugar (generously)

Let cool completely then cut into squares. Store in a cool dry place in a covered container.

Recipe can be doubled to bake in a 13"x 9" pan, but baking time might have to be doubled.